dp

thanks for your telegram. whilst you were panning for gold in the godforsaken pit i was bounty hunting too, chasing shoals of silver in hell’s ditch off a long shingle barrage beach that was thrown up in the storm of ’87. a short walk from the public bar of the wellington public house, in a town where edward hopper memorial homes loom out of the mist on a saturday night.
elsewhere in england this summer’s night is a disco fucked up, lager!, lager!, lager! all sunburn, hopes and heartaches, a cocktail of synthesizers and synthetic drugs but here on the edge of town everything is still and cold, the temperature in the fog half that of a mile away. the sea stills to nought, its waves suspended, so quiet a spinner cast a hundred yards away can be heard hitting the water with a spooky sound similar to a single sniper’s shot as if from an open window behind. feet shifting on stones echo in the gloom and we fish on our breath shortening with each cast.

and then as soon as it came it lifts for a sunset of dewdrops and pearls. the mackerel long gone. a forgotten jukebox tune. the light lingers as a necklace of streetlamps flicker in the distance. napoleon laughs. time for one more in the wellington.

drinking to the morning’s tide on the birdtable

ja